Leah
By the time Nick and Grady come through the front door, I’ve already had to turn the burner off twice.
The first time was because my legs started shaking. The second was because a wave of nausea hit hard enough that I barely made it to the sink before I threw up.
Still, I turn the burner back on.
I want to make pancakes.
It’s stupid, maybe, but tomorrow is my second round of chemo, and tonight I want to do something normal. I want to stand in our kitchen and make dinner while the people I love come home to me.
The front door bangs shut.
“Mrs. Harrison!”
Grady comes barreling into the kitchen wearing his glasses and his ballet clothes under a jacket, his little dance bag bouncing against his hip.
“Look what I learned!”
Before I can answer, he plants his feet and carefully moves into some approximation of first position.
I smile despite everything. “Look at you.”
“I can teach you.”
“Oh, buddy, I—”
Nick comes in behind him and takes one look at me. His smile disappears, and his hand immediately settles against my lower back.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His eyes narrow.
“I am.”
“Uh-huh.”
Grady peers at the stove. “Are we having pancakes for dinner?”
“Why not?”
His entire face lights up. “Yes!”
Nick shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Go wash your hands, partner.”
Grady disappears down the hall, and the second he’s gone, Nick turns me toward him.
“You’re pushing too hard.”
“I made pancakes.”
“You threw up.”
I glance toward the sink. “You saw that?”
“I have eyes.”
“I need to do something, Nick.” My voice comes out more defensive than I intend. “I can’t spend every day lying in bed waiting to feel sick again.”
His expression softens. “I know.”
“I need some part of my life to feel normal.”
He kisses my forehead. “Then we’re having pancakes.”
After dinner, though, whatever energy I borrowed to make it through the evening disappears.
“I’m going to shower,” I tell him. “I feel gross.”
The hot water helps until I run my fingers through my hair.
When I pull my hand away, strands are tangled between my fingers.
More than yesterday.
I do it again.
More comes out.
“No.”
I stare at my hand as water carries pieces of my hair toward the drain.
“No, no, no…”
Another handful.
My knees give out before I decide to sit, and I slide down the shower wall. I’m crying by the time the nausea comes back, turning just enough to be sick toward the drain while wet hair clings to my shoulders and hands.
The bathroom door opens.
“Leah?”
Nick pulls back the curtain, and his face changes instantly.
“Are you dizzy?”
I shake my head.
“What happened?”
I hold up my hand.
Hair hangs between my fingers.
His eyes close for half a second.
“It’s coming out.”
He shuts off the water and grabs a towel, helping me stand before wrapping it around me.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” I’m crying harder now. “Please don’t tell me it’s okay. It’s my hair.”
“I know.” His hands cup my face. “I know it is.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I think I want it gone.”
He studies me. “You don’t have to decide that tonight.”
“Yes, I do.” I look at the wet strands stuck to my shoulders. “I don’t want to watch it disappear a little at a time. I either want my hair or I don’t want it at all.”
He searches my face before nodding. “Okay.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting in front of the bathroom mirror wearing one of Nick’s T-shirts while he stands behind me with the electric clippers.
The buzz fills the room.
I flinch.
He immediately turns them off.
“Darlin’.”
“Just do it.”
“No.”
I look at him through the mirror.
He holds the clippers out to me. “You take the first one.”
“Why?”
“Because cancer doesn’t get to make every decision for you.”
My throat tightens.
I take the clippers.
My hand shakes as I bring them to my hairline, but I push them backward anyway.
A thick strip of hair falls into my lap.
I start crying again.
Nick takes the clippers from me and kisses the top of my head.
“You ready?”
“I’m scared.”
A little voice comes from the doorway.
“Are you scared?”
Grady stands there in his pajamas, pushing his glasses up his nose.
I wipe my cheeks. “A little.”
He comes closer.
“Will you hold my hand?”
He nods immediately. “Yeah.”
His little fingers slide into mine while Nick turns the clippers back on.
I keep my eyes on Grady while more of my hair falls away.
When it’s finished, Nick runs his palm carefully over my bare head before kissing it.
Grady studies me.
Then he says, “My turn.”
Nick and I both look at him.
“What?”
“My turn.”
“Buddy, you don’t need a haircut.”
Grady frowns like we’re being unusually slow.
Then he looks at Nick.
“You said sometimes we do things with people when they’re scared so they don’t have to do it alone.”
Nick goes completely still.
So do I.
Grady climbs onto the closed toilet lid.
“I’m ready.”
My hand flies over my mouth as the tears start again.
Nick’s eyes fill too.
“Partner…”
“I did it before.” Grady pats his head. “It grows back.”
That breaks whatever composure either of us had left.
Nick laughs through his tears and reaches for the clippers.
“All right, buddy.”
Grady grins.
Nick shaves his head.
And when he’s finished, Grady rubs both hands over his scalp, delighted with himself.
Then Nick looks at me.
Without saying a word, he turns the clippers around and runs them straight through his own hair.
“Nick.”
He keeps going.
Grady starts laughing.
By the time it’s over, the bathroom floor is covered in three different shades of hair, Grady is rubbing Nick’s bald head for comparison, and I’m crying so hard my ribs hurt.
Not because I’m scared anymore.
Because somehow, in a life that keeps taking pieces of me away, these two keep finding ways to make sure I never lose them.
***
The next morning, Grady talks the entire way to school.
He tells us about ballet, about how his teacher said his first position is getting better, about a kid named Cooper who apparently refuses to point his toes correctly, and about the fact that he thinks he might want to be a dancer and a doctor when he grows up because, according to him, there is no rule saying he can’t do both.
By the time Nick pulls into the drop-off line, I’ve almost forgotten where we’re going after this.
Almost.
Grady unbuckles himself, but instead of reaching for the door, he turns around between the seats to look at me.
“I miss you being my teacher, Mrs. Harrison.”
The softness in his voice catches me somewhere tender.
“Oh, buddy.” I reach back and straighten his glasses. “You don’t like your substitute?”
He considers that with the seriousness only a five-year-old can manage.
“She’s okay.”
“Just okay?”
He shrugs. “She’s not you.”
Nick makes a sound beside me that is suspiciously close to an aww, and I elbow him without taking my eyes off Grady.
“Well, I miss being your teacher too, but I’m going to come back as soon as my doctor says I can.”
“When?”
“I don’t know yet.”
His mouth turns down.
“But you know what you can do until then?”
“What?”
“You can show your substitute what an amazing student you are, so when I come back, she can tell me how wonderful you’ve been.”
His entire face brightens. “Okay.”
“And no terrorizing her.”
“I don’t terrorize people.”
Nick turns in his seat. “That is categorically false.”
Grady giggles, grabs his backpack, then leans between us for kisses before climbing out of the truck.
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, partner.”
He looks at me.
“Love you, Mrs. Harrison.”
My throat tightens. “Love you too, sweetheart.”
We watch until he disappears through the school doors, and when Nick pulls away from the curb, his hand finds mine over the center console.
Neither of us mentions where we’re going.
We don’t have to.
The cancer center is only twenty minutes away.
By the time we get there, the knot in my stomach has worked its way into my throat. I’ve done this before. I know what the chairs look like, what the machines sound like, how the antiseptic smell seems to cling to everything. Knowing what comes next should make it easier.
It doesn’t.
Nick gets me settled like he’s preparing me for an eight-hour flight instead of chemotherapy.
He unfolds the blanket I brought from home and tucks it over my legs, puts my water where I can reach it, digs my book out of my bag and places it on my lap, then produces a package of crackers I don’t remember packing.
“You know I’m not going to starve to death in the next four hours.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
He leans down and kisses me, his palm warm against the side of my face. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Important business.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“It should.”
He kisses my forehead this time before disappearing toward the little refreshment area.
I’m adjusting the scarf around my head when someone says my name.
“Leah?”
I turn and find my mother standing a few feet away with her purse tucked beneath her arm.
“Mom?”
She gives me a tentative smile. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to be here.”
There’s something about how quickly she says it that makes me study her.
“Because you actually want to be here, or because you’ll feel guilty if you aren’t?”
Her smile fades. “I suppose I earned that question.”
I look down at my hands.
She takes the chair Nick left behind. For several seconds, she doesn’t say anything, although I can feel her looking at me.
“You’ve already lost your hair?”
And there it is.
I sigh. “Yes, Mom.”
“I thought it usually took longer.”
“It started coming out, so I shaved it.”
“Oh.”
Her eyes move over my scarf again.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom.”
“I was only going to ask whether you’ve been eating.”
“Yes.”
“Enough protein?”
“I’m trying.”
“You need protein while you’re—”
“I know.” I close my eyes. “Please don’t turn chemotherapy into another thing I’m somehow doing incorrectly.”
Her face falls.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know you didn’t.”
That’s the exhausting part. I actually believe her.
Mom folds her hands in her lap. “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore without saying the wrong thing.”
“Then just talk to me.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to see for myself that you were okay.”
A ripple of laughter from across the infusion room draws both our attention, and I don’t even have to look to know who caused it.
Nick is coming toward us with enough juice boxes tucked against his chest to supply a kindergarten classroom.
Somewhere along the way, he has apparently befriended half the women in the room.
One older woman catches his wrist as he passes and says something that makes him laugh, while another calls after him that she wants apple juice, not grape.
Mom watches the whole thing.
“He’s taking care of you, isn’t he?”
The question is so quiet that I almost miss it.
“Yes.”
“You love him.”
I look at Nick, who is now crouched beside an elderly woman’s chair trying to open her juice box because apparently this is his job today.
“I do.”
Mom reaches for my hand. “Does he love you?”
“So much it scares me sometimes.”
She squeezes my fingers.
“Do you remember what you used to tell me?” I ask. “About finding a man who loves his wife the way Christ loved the church? Someone who serves her and protects her and doesn’t make love about what she can do for him?”
Mom nods slowly.
“I found that. It just doesn’t look the way you thought it would.”
Her eyes drift toward Nick again.
“He doesn’t believe.”
“No. He doesn’t go to church. He swears too much, he’s stubborn, and half the time I think he enjoys getting on my nerves.
” I smile despite myself. “But he loves me exactly as I am. He doesn’t love the version of me he thinks I should become.
He loves me. I’ve never had that before, Mom.
Not inside the church or outside of it.”
“What about children?”
“We have Grady.”
“But is Nick truly all right with that?”
“Nick doesn’t think he’s settling for me and Grady.” I shake my head. “He thinks he won the lottery.”
That finally makes her smile.
Then it fades.
“Matt told us what happened with Declan.”
My stomach tightens immediately. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“All right.”
I look at her because I expected an argument.
Instead, she takes my hand in both of hers.
“I’m proud of you.”
The words hurt in a place I didn’t know was still waiting for them.
“I should have said that more when you were growing up,” she continues. “I’m proud of the woman you are, Leah. I’m proud that you got out. I’m proud that you’re still here.”
My eyes fill before I can stop them.
Nick reaches us then, holding out a juice box like an offering.
“Mrs. Barnett, can I interest you in apple juice?”
Mom laughs and wipes beneath one eye as she stands. “No, thank you. I think I’ll let you have your chair back.”
Nick’s eyes flick from her to me, checking my face for some clue about what happened while he was gone.
“I can get you coffee.”
“I’m fine, Nick. Thank you.”
She bends and kisses my cheek.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
After she leaves, Nick lowers himself into the chair beside me and watches her disappear down the hallway before looking back at me.
He opens his mouth.
“Don’t.”
His mouth closes.
I hold out my hand instead.
He takes it without another word, lacing his fingers through mine before bringing my knuckles to his lips.
And right now, that’s all I need.